


In Another Life

by Spellmugwump



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Ancient Greece, Gen, Sparta - Freeform, Spartan, Time Travel, Warrior - Freeform, ancient hero, ancient hero percy, ancient hero!percy, ancient sparta, out of time, percy time travels, perseus - Freeform, sort of
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-02
Updated: 2016-01-02
Packaged: 2018-05-11 06:33:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5617048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spellmugwump/pseuds/Spellmugwump
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Perseus is a Spartan warrior, ready and willing to die in battle - until he doesn't, and is shoved a couple of thousand years into the future instead. All because these kids can't fight worth a damn.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Another Life

The battle had been a flurry of blood and gore, aching muscles and adrenaline in his blood so thick that he scarcely believed he had any capacity to bleed anymore. It was everything that Sparta had prepared him for.

But now, Perseus lay dying in the dirt. He was a Spartan, a son of Poseidon, a prodigal warrior and the darling of most of the Olympians. But still — he was mortal.

He did not know how many of his people had died, or how many were alive, for there was only a certain strange stillness that settled across the killing grounds of where he lay. He had been struck in the stomach by a Persian sword; he made easy work of the perpetrator, and their blood was still staining his skin. He had carried on fighting, but it was the steady seeping of blood from the wound that pierced halfway through his gut that finished him in the end.

With an energy that he could barely muster, Perseus turned his eyes downwards and stared at his bloodied hand clutching at his sword. It had been a gift from his father, Poseidon, and he had cherished it even more so than any child of Sparta cherished their favoured weapon. It had given him the strength to continue after fight after fight of battling his fellows to prove himself just as capable as any older than him. He might be just sixteen years, but he had the faith of the gods and a determination which his trainer had laughingly called folly.

Even though he lay dying, the glory of war was not a fable to him any longer. Perseus felt at peace in dying rightfully in battle with his people around him, especially without the guilt of leaving a wife or child behind that he knew some of the other men felt.

His breath became laboured and his eyes blurred even more, the gold and red of his hand and sword becoming inscrutable. It was only with the last glimmer of the dying sun reflecting off of the blade being engrained in his memory that Perseus realised that it was no longer dusty dirt he felt beneath his body, but a polished stone.

 

*

 

‘I am supposed to be dead.’ Was the first thing that came out of Perseus’ mouth when he awoke. He did not yet open his eyes, letting them adjust under the safety of his lids in defence of the bright light he could already see.

‘Yes,’ came a man’s voice, ‘you are.’

Immediately, Perseus recognised the voice. It was Poseidon. He opened his eyes slowly, wincing at the light, before turning to where his father was. Indeed, he was sitting directly to Perseus’ right, in a room that looked cleaner than even the great temple dedicated to Ares. Poseidon was wearing some kind of strange dress; before, when appearing to Perseus, he had worn traditional clothing typical of any nobleman. Now, the most notable of what he was wearing was the brightly coloured material over his torso. Perseus had never seen such a fabric, let alone dyed such precise and vivid colours and patterns.

But, who was he to question what the Olympians chose to wear?

‘Why am I still alive, my Lord?’ Perseus asked politely, uncomprehendingly, slowly breathing in the clean, fresh air of the room that was not soaked with the blood of his brothers. ‘I was dying with honour on the battlefield. I was —’

‘The Fates have decided that you have a greater destiny.’ Poseidon interrupted, and Perseus did not allow himself to be irritated. He couldn’t lose his anger with his father as he had with many of his own comrades.

There was a long pause, in which Perseus gathered Poseidon was waiting for a question and was going to force him to ask it. ‘Which is?’ He offered stiffly, hearing his father shift uncomfortably.

‘We have taken you from your time, Perseus,’ Poseidon said gently, while Perseus lay in shock, too weak to move and too stuck to want to. ‘The Fates advised us to do so, we could not argue with them. Millennia have passed, but we need you to help train demigods now so that they can fight. We have become rather more docile since the ancient — uh, well, since the likes of Sparta were around. They need the skills and training of a warrior from the warrior-nation; there has never been any like Sparta.’

The pause stretched longer than Perseus cared to acknowledge, before he finally turned his head back towards his father. ‘Why me? Why not one of my kings? A nobleman of rank?’

The expression upon Poseidon’s face was inscrutable as Perseus stared at him, waiting for an answer. ‘In battle, there is only so much a king can do. Only so much a nobleman can do before they must leave in fear of their life. You are a true warrior, Perseus,’ Poseidon said, with complete faith in his own words. ‘You are one of those that truly wins battles and wars, not your superiors.’

‘You are only a true warrior if you die in battle,’ Perseus replied bitterly, unhappy beyond compare. He knew nothing of this new world, nothing of anything and he hated it more than anything. He would not even receive Ares happily now, he thought, let alone any other god.

‘Perseus,’ Poseidon said regretfully, sadly, ‘your death with your countrymen was not to be. I’m sorry. I don’t know when you were meant to die but it certainly wasn’t back then — or just now, for you, I suppose.’

Perseus didn’t quite know how to reply. He had been painfully uprooted, taken from everything he knew, dumped unceremoniously in an alien world, expected to fight alongside strangers that he knew nothing of. All because the fates and the gods wished it.

And, because of that, what else could he do but accept it?

**Author's Note:**

> This has been hanging around on my computer for quite a while. I've only just recovered it and I really hope you like it - I mainly wrote it because I thought it was a cool idea and I couldn't find anything with the plot:(
> 
> I hope you think it's a cool idea too, hopefully not ruined by my writing!


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